Use Only What You Need

One of the major shifts in my thinking has been to be mindful of the resources that I have an "excess of". In tech, I see all the time: "storage is cheap, just store everything", "hardware is cheap, don't bother optimizing". We have done so much to improve efficiency, pricing and storage, but as a result we are just using more and more. And then, as a result, my computer still heats up into an oven when opening a Google design blog post that contains only text and pictures. This phenomena of using more resources despite increased efficiency is also called Jevons Paradox: when the cost for a resource drops, if the demand is price elastic, the overall quantity of what we use increases. This happens all the time; the term was specifically coined in reference to our usage of oil. It seems that when a resource becomes cheap, we stop handling the resource with care. For example, it used to be that we really needed to care about performance, now we care far less, and as a result older devices become obsolete faster.

This paradox makes it likely that given the finite resources we have, increased efficiency alone will not stop global warming.

Another phenomena I have observed is: small inefficiencies might seem like they don't matter, but they add up and become a big problem. One person throwing plastic into the ocean does not cause any issues, but when everyone does it then it becomes a problem. Yet all the time we tend to not care about the small damages we cause, because the focus is always on the "biggest problems". Especially a business-minded person tries to look at where they can make the biggest impact, and tries to stay laser focused on that goal. That means that secondary goals like "the environment" or "worker's rights" fall by the wayside. Yet, these issues matter but because of how essentially all hierarchical structures operate, the objective as a manager is basically deciding where to allocate funds, and all departments need more funding.

There is this obsession in finding what is the one thing that can make the largest impact, yet in this multifaceted and complex world we live in, such reasoning leads to important topics falling by the wayside.

I also think when we argue like this, it makes it really easy to shift blame: a small country can point to a larger country and argue that whatever they do to combat climate change doesn't matter as long as the larger country continues to pollute; an individual can point to systemic issues to argue that whatever resources they use don't matter as long as the systemic issues are not solved. They are just "a drop in the ocean", and I think this contributes to the extremely wasteful attitude that ends up leading to Jevon's Paradox.

I do not have a societal solution, but I do not think prioritizing time this way works if we are to coexist. On a personal level I have adopted an attitude of radically caring for the resources I use. This attitude means: not leaving the faucet running, turning off the lights before leaving the room, avoiding plastics, recycling, not wasting CPU cycles, not wasting storage. I have no illusion that I alone doing this will solve climate change, but I do think if we all adopt this philosophy, it would make a big difference.

- Marc